Giusto, staff drove on taxpayer's dime

Even as he cut staff and closed jail beds, Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto assigned a growing number of "take-home" cars to his employees with virtually no oversight of their use and cost, an Oregonian investigation shows.

The public ended up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in gas and car bills for the workers at a time when many taxpayers are struggling to cover their own rising fuel costs.

One sergeant ran up a $5,000 gas tab last year while driving a Ford Expedition home to Salem every night. A part-time sheriff's chaplain put 40,000 miles on a new Ford Escape, though it's unclear why because sheriff's officials didn't keep track of what he was doing.

All the problems led county board Chairman Ted Wheeler to announce this week that his office will take charge of the sheriff's take-home fleet immediately. The sheriff's staff must now follow the much stricter rules applied to the rest of the county's employees.